


So Let Us Not Be Lonesome

by ThrillingDetectiveTales



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, F/M, Gen, M/M, ghost!Vasquez, medium!Faraday
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-27 23:56:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8422690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThrillingDetectiveTales/pseuds/ThrillingDetectiveTales
Summary: “Look,” Faraday tapped the ash off his cigarette into a plastic solo cup full of sand that he kept tucked into the cup-holder in the center console, a sort of poor-man's ashtray, “worst case scenario, I run into a spook with a bad attitude and wind up getting banned from yet another of California’s many proud testaments to yesteryear. Won’t be the first time it happens and probably won’t be the last, either. Best case, I don’t run into any ghosts at all, nobody catches me talking to myself and worries about my sanity, and we all get to go on pretending that our entire family doesn’t think I’m in the middle stages of some weird psychosis until ma brings it up at Christmas after a few too many hot toddies.”   CURRENTLY ON HIATUS





	

**Author's Note:**

> Before we get into it, I just wanted to take a moment to say that this fic straight-up wouldn't exist without the darling **Kat2107** , who not only inspired it but is also responsible for at least half of the plot.
> 
> Happy Halloween, loves! ;)

It had been almost a year since the accident, and Joshua Faraday still missed the feel of an engine humming between his legs, the wind whipping up underneath his shirt as he sped down the open road. There was a certain freedom to riding a motorcycle that no car would ever be able to match – especially not the beat-up old ’97 Jetta that Faraday had only recently scrounged his way into ownership of with what little of his meager paycheck wasn’t still going to paying off his medical bills.

He was buzzing along down the ’99 toward a historic California landmark about an hour’s ride south of Sacramento, a humble stack of carefully wrapped gifts in the back seat. From the website, Rose Creek looked to be little more than a dusty collection of buildings populated by wannabe actors in spurs and ten-gallon hats. That this was the place his youngest niece was begging to see for her seventh birthday seemed, to Faraday, exceedingly odd, and not for the first time he marveled at the fact that he was related by blood to any of his family.

He supposed it made a bizarre sort of sense – according to his sister, Beth, her youngest daughter was obsessed with cowboys at the moment, and Rose Creek was a lovingly preserved sample of an Old West mining boomtown. It had apparently been the site of some famous peacetime land battle, instrumental in the later development of vineyards in the area as the success of the townsfolk had shifted power out of the hands of a mining kingpin who’d died in the skirmish and returned the town to a purely agrarian stream of revenue. A little dark, for a seven-year-old, but then Nina had always been a bit on the macabre side, which was probably part of the reason she was Faraday’s favorite despite her tremendously strange taste in celebratory outings.

"Ugh, it looks hideous," came a voice from beside him, and Faraday took a moment to wistfully recall that by far the best part of riding a motorcycle was its limited capacity for passengers.

“It’s just old, gran,” Faraday sighed, tapping his thumbs against the steering wheel and peering over.

“ _I’m_ old,” the woman in the passenger’s seat scoffed disdainfully. “This place is _ancient_.”

She didn’t look a day over forty, with the same red hair that Faraday and most of his siblings favored gathered up around her face in glossy pin curls. She had one delicate eyebrow arched high in judgment and was puckering her cherry-red mouth down at Faraday's iPhone, clipped into a cheap plastic holder that snapped onto the air vents in the center of the dash. She squinted, pressing her nose so close to the screen that the lenses of her mother-of-pearl cats-eye glasses lit up white with the glare.

"They even have one of those horrible old-time photo studios." She shook her head distastefully. "How gauche."

"You don’t have to come," Faraday said pointedly, one arm hanging out the driver's side window, a half-smoked cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, muted strains of The Clash whipping away on the breeze.

"It’s rude is what it is," she scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest and throwing herself dramatically back down into the passenger seat, ignoring Faraday’s comment. There was no sound to accompany the motion, other than her exasperated huff. "They ought to know how terrible those places are for someone with your gifts."

 _God save me from well-meaning ghosts,_ Faraday thought darkly, and took a long, hard drag off his cigarette.

Abigail O’Connor had become a Faraday back in 1932, when she married Faraday's grandfather and combined the spitfire personality of the O’Connor clan with the legendary Irish temper of the Faradays, thus ensuring that no holiday dinner in the ensuing eighty years would pass without at least one person drunkenly attempting to fistfight another. She hadn't let a paltry little thing like dying of breast cancer in the fall of 1991 keep her down, either.

Admittedly, Faraday might have had a somewhat easier childhood if he hadn’t been haunted by his grandmother during his formative stages, but then, a nosy family matriarch seeking to cast aspersions on her brood’s life choices from beyond the grave was hardly the most horrifying thing he'd experienced in the intervening years since his gifts had manifested. It was strange, he thought with a little twist of a smirk, that he was closer with his grandmother twenty-five years after her long and ugly passing than anyone else in his family had been when she was still alive.

"They don’t mean anything by it, gran," Faraday said with a sigh. “Hard to accommodate for someone who sees ghosts when you can’t see them yourself.” It wasn't worth mentioning that barely anybody in his family even believed that he _could_ see spirits in the first place.

“Still,” Abigail said darkly.

“Look,” Faraday tapped the ash off his cigarette into a plastic solo cup full of sand that he kept tucked into the cup-holder in the center console, a sort of poor-man's ashtray, “worst case scenario, I run into a spook with a bad attitude and wind up getting banned from yet another of California’s many proud testaments to yesteryear. Won’t be the first time it happens and probably won’t be the last, either. Best case, I don’t run into any ghosts at all, nobody catches me talking to myself and worries about my sanity, and we all get to go on pretending that our entire family doesn’t think I’m in the middle stages of some weird psychosis until ma brings it up at Christmas after a few too many hot toddies.”

"That's because you'd rather stew in your machismo than have an honest conversation, just like your grandfather," Abigail snapped, clicking her tongue. "Taciturn wells of emotion, the both of you."

"If he was such a downer, why’d you marry him?" Faraday teased. Abigail smiled and wrinkled her nose at him.

"I loved your grandfather, but he was just as stubborn as you are, Joshua, and by the time I passed on, all those feelings he never talked about had festered something fierce and turned him into a man I hardly recognized." Her face went wistful and melancholy as she reached out to touch Faraday's wrist, little more than an icy sensation against his skin. "You remember what a sour old grouch he was those last few years, tucked up all alone in that big empty house," she said sadly, shaking her head so her curls bounced. "I don't want that for you, my love."

Faraday finished off his cigarette and jabbed the butt into his makeshift ashtray to die alongside its brethren.

"Which is precisely why I'm driving out to the ass-end of nowhere to spend the morning wandering around in some cowboy ghost town," he explained easily. "Hard to be lonesome with my favorite big sister and my favorite nieces and the world's douchiest adjunct history professor."

Abigail snorted.

"That man is _terrible_ ," she agreed. "What on Earth was our Bethany thinking?"

"I think she has a thing for elbow patches," Faraday said absently, dropping a lead foot on the gas and tearing around a minivan going ten under. The little Jetta rattled like it was going to shake apart but zipped gamely along under Faraday's hands. It was nowhere near as satisfying as cutting people off on his motorcycle had been, but Faraday stuck an arm out the window and flipped the honking tourists a cheerful bird even so.

"You're going to drive yourself into an early grave," Abigail muttered disapprovingly. Faraday grinned at her and wagged his eyebrows.

"Not if I drink myself there first."

Abigail sighed through her nose and reached over to swat him on the shoulder, a sudden icy burst of sensation.

"That's not funny," she chided. Faraday grinned wider.

"It's a _little_ funny," he insisted, and Abigail's disapproving frown tilted up at the corners. "Exit's up here, so if you ain't fixin' to come you might wanna pop back home." He shot her a rueful smirk. "I'd like to try for at least ten minutes of peace before Dave starts obliquely mentioning psychiatrists and rolling up looking like I'm talking to myself doesn't seem like a great approach to that end."

Abigail sighed and leaned over to press a frosty kiss to his cheek.

"Don't you let them talk down to you, my love," she said sternly. "Your gift is a blessing and you're lucky to have it."

"I know, gran," Faraday promised weakly. "I won't." His abilities had seemed more like a curse than anything over the last year or so, but he could never quite bring himself to regret having more time with his grandmother.

Abigail nodded once, sharp, and was gone between the space of one blink and the next.

In a nod to preserving the atmosphere in Rose Creek, whatever society was responsible for the upkeep had graciously provided an unsightly gravel lot for guests to park in rather than outfit the quaint little town with anachronistic parking spaces. Faraday paid a truly ridiculous entry-fee to a spotty-faced boy in a booth barely big enough to turn around in and wheeled off to the right in search of an available spot. It was busier than he would have expected for a Podunk little tourist trap in the middle of nowhere, mostly families toting children of varying ages and levels of enthusiasm. He spotted a familiar white Escalade at the end of the third row and cruised into an empty space a few cars away.

All three of his nieces were posted up on the back bumper of the giant SUV when Faraday toted his armful of gifts over, all of them wearing sparkling pink cowboy hats and boots. Their drip of a father was working his way down the line, carefully applying sunscreen to the parts of their faces he apparently didn’t trust them to reach themselves, while his sister looked on fondly.

She was, Faraday realized with no small amount of glee, kitted out just like the girls, in a glittery pink Stetson that clashed horribly with her red hair, a pair of matching boots poking out from beneath the hems of her jeans.

“Hey Bebbo,” he greeted, strolling up casually alongside her and inflecting all the judgment he could possibly manage into his tone. “Really going all in, I see.”

“Shut up, Jay,” Beth muttered meanly, turning with a grin to throw her arms around his shoulders and pull him fiercely to her. Faraday shifted the gifts and slipped one arm around her waist, doing his best not to knock her hat off with his face as he enthusiastically returned the embrace.

“No, I like it,” he insisted with a laugh. “Very _you_.”

“Ugh, you reek like Marlboros,” Beth sighed, pushing him away and wrinkling her nose, though her mouth was turned up at the corners.

“Probably because I smoke Marlboros,” Faraday agreed easily. Beth rolled her eyes.

“Uncle Josh!” one of the girls shrieked, and Faraday looked over to find Nina beaming from beneath a streaky white mask of sunscreen, leaning around her father so that she could see him. “You came!”

“’course I did, kiddo!” he replied brightly, wagging one of the gifts in the air. “Couldn’t miss the big seventh year celebration, now could I?”

“This isn’t the celebration, Uncle Jay,” Mandy said chidingly, as if it should be obvious. She had her sparkly pink hat hanging down on her back, strawberry hair gathered into a bun on top of her head while she stared with rapt attention at her cell phone. She slid off the bumper and wandered absently over to give Faraday the lukewarm, one-armed hug of apathetic preteens across the continent, never once looking up from the screen in front of her. “This is some weird Nina thing.”

“ _Mandy_ ,” Beth snapped, and Mandy muttered a half-hearted apology out the side of her mouth.

“The real party is next weekend at Aunt Holly’s!” Paige – the middle daughter – piped up, wiping at a remaining smear of sunscreen on her cheek. She pulled a shining silver pistol with a bright orange cap on one end from the costume holster at her waist and leaped from the bumper like a spider monkey, practically skipping her way over. “Check out my gun!”

“Wow,” Faraday said, leaning down for a better look and making all of the appropriately impressed noises as Paige pulled the trigger to produce a comically adorable _pop-pop_. “Very cool, kid. You a Pinkerton or an outlaw?”

“What’s a Pinkerton?” Paige asked curiously.

“Pinkertons were Victorian detectives,” Dave - who apparently couldn’t be bothered to eschew his professorial uniform for even a day and was wearing a truly hideous tweed blazer with faux-leather patches at the elbows - provided over his shoulder. He was holding Nina’s ponytail aloft to apply sunscreen to the back of her neck, Nina scowling miserably. “I think your Uncle Josh meant to ask if you were a good guy or a bad guy.”

Faraday cut a dark glare at Beth, who tilted her head and mouthed, ‘Be nice.’ Faraday stared at her for a long second, and then sighed narrow-eyed.

“Sure did,” he said flatly, summoning a grin and winking down at Paige. “So whaddya say? Good guy?” He wrinkled his nose and shook his head, making an exaggerated face of disgust that set Paige to giggling. “Or bad guy?” He nodded with a grin, eyes wide and bright and approving.

“Bad guy!” Paige agreed excitedly, jumping a full six inches off the ground to meet the high-five that Faraday offered her, Pollyanna pig-tail braids whipping out behind her.

“Atta girl!”

Apparently out of excuses not to turn around and engage in conversation like a polite adult, Dave let Nina down from the bumper and turned to Faraday with his arms crossed over his chest. He was a stodgy little man with a face like a pug, and Faraday would go to his grave believing that he had somehow blackmailed Beth into marrying him.

“How lovely,” he said dryly. “Less then ten minutes and already you’ve got our daughter on the wrong side of the law.”

“Well, start as you mean to go on,” Faraday shrugged with a broad grin, gratified when his sister hid a smirk behind her hand while Dave scowled darkly.

“Uncle Josh,” Nina asked, tugging at the hem of Faraday’s red leather jacket, blue eyes wide and shining with awe. “Are those presents for me?”

“They sure are, darlin’,” Faraday assured with a smirk. “Tell you what, how about we stash ‘em in your car for now and open ‘em up after we see some real-life cowboys?”

“Yeah!” Nina squealed delightedly, jumping up and down. “Cowboys, cowboys, cowboys!”

“Cowboys, indeed,” Faraday drawled, stepping past Dave to stack the gifts in the back of the car. They were mostly books about the Old West – paper dolls and the early reader stuff that Beth had recommended when Faraday called to ask for ideas, so he wasn’t too worried about them being stolen but it paid to be cautious. In the few seconds it had taken him to toss what looked to be a picnic blanket over top of them, Dave had taken the girls on ahead, leaving Beth to lock up the car.

“Shall we?” Faraday asked, offering an arm. Beth linked her elbow through his, grinning sweetly up from under the brim of her deeply impractical hat.

“I’m glad you could make it, little brother,” she said as they strolled their way through the parking lot to the train-station entryway into Rose Creek.

“Yeah, me too,” Faraday agreed, and was surprised to discover just how much he meant it.

Recovery had been long, and slow, and grueling, especially without anyone but Abigail - who was only corporeal when Faraday had the energy to will her so - around to help him out on the bad days, but Faraday didn’t blame his sister for not sticking around past those first terrible few days. He hadn’t exactly been the most gracious of patients, and he knew that his blasé attitude toward death combined with just how close he had come to it himself made the rest of his family sad and nervous by turns.

“You look good,” Beth continued. “Better.”

Faraday snorted a laugh and curled his hand into a fist, rapping his knuckles sharply against the meat of his right thigh.

“Four pins and six months of physio’ll do that,” he joked, sighing when Beth’s smile flickered. He nudged his shoulder against hers. "Hey, don't be like that. I survived, and except for the strange new ability to predict the weather and a hell of a time at airport security, I'm the same me I always was."

"That's what worries me," Beth teased, a spark of her good humor returning.

"How are things with Dave?" Faraday asked pointedly, and his sister snorted.

"Excellent as usual," she retorted, same as always. "I know you two don't get along, but he's really a stellar father, Jay."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," Faraday replied lightly, and Beth huffed a laugh.

"How about you? Anybody special in your life?" she pressed, arching an eyebrow up at him. Faraday could see Abigail echoed in her face, and he rolled his eyes.

"Not presently."

"Shame," Beth sighed, flashing her ticket to an old man in a train conductor's uniform and waiting patiently while Faraday dug his from his pocket. "Holly was just complaining the other day that she and Chess are sick of being the only queer kids at Christmas."

The interior of the train station was, in actuality, a fairly tasteful gift-shop. It had a few glass cases around the edges of the room, showcasing prominent artifacts of Rose Creek history, walls of books and stuffed toys, tee-shirts, and a spinning rack of post-cards in the corner. Faraday peered down at a velvet tray of gaudy silver jewelry and laughed.

“Tough shit for them,” he said with a shrug. “If they don’t want to suffer through ma’s Catholic guilt after the liquor comes out, they don’t have to go. It’s not like it’s mandatory.”

Beth frowned.

“Kinda _is_ , Josh,” she said archly. “Don’t tell me you’re not coming this year.”

Faraday shrugged again.

“Haven’t decided yet,” he said casually, swiping a finger across the topmost row of the post-card rack and sending it spinning. Beth gently tugged her arm free and turned so that they were standing face to face, her hands posted up on her hips in her best serious eldest child pose.

“Look, we all understand why you couldn’t come last year,” she said starkly, brow furrowed, green eyes glittering. “With the accident, and everything. And the year before that was,” she paused, biting at her lower lip for a second before settling on, “unfortunate.”

Faraday scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“But,” Beth continued over him, “we miss you, little brother. We’re – ” she swallowed, frowning, eyes going glassy, “we’re _worried_ about you and – ”

“Goddamnit,” Faraday swore, sighing harshly, and reached out to grab Beth’s wrist.

He pulled her in close, wrapping her in a hug and knocking her stupid hat off, letting his chin rest on top of her head. It was a small mercy that he favored the O’Connor side of their lineage in height and so was at least a head taller than almost all of his siblings. He could hear Beth swallowing, face pressed against his chest, arms wrapped tightly around him, fighting back tears.

Faraday closed his eyes, pained, and murmured quietly against her hair, “Can we not do this today, Bebbo? Please?”

Beth sniffled, loud and miserable, and Faraday ran a hand up and down her back.

“I got here on time.” His voice stuck in his throat a little, as he continued, “I’m sober, just like you asked. I just want to have a good time with you and the girls.”

There was a moment of silence and then Beth squeezed where she had her arms around his chest, adding thickly, “And Dave.”

Faraday snorted.

“I’m not making any promises on that one,” he muttered mulishly, and Beth huffed a watery laugh against the front of his white V-neck. They stood for a few seconds longer, wrapped together, before Beth sighed shakily and stepped away, wiping at her eyes.

“I think I got mascara on your shirt,” she said apologetically. Faraday waved her off.

“That is not the grossest thing this shirt has seen, by far,” he promised, wagging his eyebrows. Beth made a face, but she was grinning.

“Ew, Jay!” she chided, collecting her hat from the floor and adjusting it in a full-length mirror against the wall.

“ _You_ asked if I was single,” Faraday leered, following her out into Rose Creek proper.

Dave was stood with the girls a little way down the unpaved street, smiling fondly at his daughters as they cooed over a moderately sized pony being led around by a mustachioed man in period costume.

"Uncle Jay, look!" Nina shrieked delightedly. "A horse!"

"I see it, kiddo!" Faraday replied with a grin, sliding his Wayfarers down onto his face, stuffing his hands into his pockets, and striding over. Beth trailed along behind him at a more sedate pace. Faraday tried not to let the weight of her gaze on his back bother him. "What's his name?"

"Crabapple," Mandy supplied, the draw of a real, live horse apparently greater than whatever shenanigans were happening on Instagram. She was running her hand in gentle, reverent strokes along the horse's muscular neck. "He's a gelding."

"He eats sugar!" Paige added brightly, glancing up to the horse's caretaker. "Right Mr. Dickie?"

"Sure does!" Mr. Dickie agreed, while Faraday did his best not to laugh at the unfortunate nickname. "It's one of his favorite treats."

"Why Crabapple?" Faraday asked. Mr. Dickie grinned.

"He had a bad temper as a baby and my brother - " he paused to add an aside to the girls. "He helps me take care of all the horses here in Rose Creek. Anyway, little Crabapple was a sour baby and Earl has a funny sense of humor."

"What are crab apples?" Nina asked, blinking up at Faraday.

"They're a type of apple known for being very bitter," Dave supplied before Faraday could get a word out.

He cut a glare up at his brother-in-law. Dave stared placidly back, chin raised in challenge with a jowly scowl. Faraday rolled his eyes.

"Just what your daddy said," he told Nina. She considered this for a moment and then flashed a wide, gap-toothed grin.

"Will you put me on your shoulders, Uncle Josh?" she asked hopefully, spinning around once with her arms spread wide. "I wanna see _all_ _around_ Rose Creek!"

"I dunno," Faraday said thoughtfully, scrubbing at his chin. "You look pretty heavy."

"Please!" Nina grinned, grabbing at Faraday's pocket and leaning her weight against his legs. "I promise I'm not heavy!"

"You promise?" Faraday pressed. Nina nodded, hat bobbing up and down. Faraday sighed.

"Well all right, then," he said agreeably, and took a knee in the dirt. By the time Nina had clambered up and Faraday had managed to get his feet back under him, Mr. Dickie and Crabapple had said their farewells and were meandering along down the street, the girls all hollering and waving as they went.

"Bye Mr. Dickie!" Nina shouted, waving an arm enthusiastically. "By Crabapple!"

She started to teeter backward a little bit despite the fact that Faraday had an arm securely over each of her legs, and flailed a foot to regain her balance. The sharp heel of her boot caught Faraday directly in the sternum, knocking a hard breath out of him.

" _Oof_ ," Beth said with a wince. "Nina, sweetie, be careful, please."

"See?" Faraday said, coughing and grinning at his sister. "Fun."

Beth curled a palm over her mouth and laughed into her hand.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He should have known it was too easy, really.

Most of the morning went by in a pleasant haze of poorly executed Southern accents and overzealous twang. The girls - and Faraday, by extension, as Nina's chosen steed - ducked joyfully into the livery stable and the wagon maker's shop, and sat for a twenty-minute demonstration about horseshoes at the smithy that Faraday enjoyed more than he anticipated.

They were on their way to the general store to see about some refreshments, stopping to read the informational plaques posted along the street, when a young woman on the corner started wailing.

"Beware!" She shouted, affecting a spooky, tremulous waver to her voice. "Beware! For in the eventide, the dead roam the streets here in fair Rose Creek!"

She had a cast iron lantern in one hand and a stack of fliers in the other, floor length dress with sleeves all the way to her wrists, undoubtedly miserable even in the crisp air of late October. She passed off a flier to a young couple with a grateful grin and raised her lantern up high.

"Be ye not bold enough to walk in the night, why, so close to All Hallow's some say the dead walk at noon! Join me here in five minutes, if you seek to venture into Haunted Rose Creek!"

" _Whoa_ ," Mandy said, eyes big and excited, turning to tug at her father's sleeve. "A ghost tour! Dad can we do it? Please?"

Dave darted a look in Faraday's direction before he smiled apologetically down at Mandy and said, "I don't think that's a good idea, sweetheart."

Faraday bristled, hackles rising. He could take Dave’s barbs about his lack of education, could stand the way he constantly corrected any minor mistake about history or grammar that Faraday made as part of some macho hindbrain need to be the smartest man in the room, but this was different and from the way that Dave was watching him warily, they both knew it.  
  
“Why not?” Faraday asked, tilting his head, smirking meanly. Beth, holding hands with Paige, cut a nervous look between Faraday and her husband. Dave pressed his lips into a thin line, glowering.  
  
“I think you know why not, Joshua,” he said, clipped. Faraday huffed an incredulous laugh and took a predatory step forward. Dave, to his credit, didn’t back down, just nudged Mandy delicately behind him.  
  
“Are you serious?” Faraday scoffed at the action, frowning. “What do you think – ”  
  
“ _Josh_ ,” Beth said, forceful, cutting him off. Faraday looked over at her. She dug around in the pocket of her jeans for a second and came up with a twenty, green eyes wide and intent. “Why don’t we let the girls go get some drinks?”

Faraday clenched his jaw, and stared her down for a long second before snapping darkly, “ _Sure_.”

He bent low, letting Nina slide down his back, dropping onto the wood planks of the rickety porch with a heavy thud. She tugged at his jacket, blinking up at him with guileless blue eyes.  
  
“What do you want, Uncle Josh?”  
  
He smiled down at her, huffing a melancholy breath, and said, “I'm alright, kiddo. Thanks.”  
  
Once the three girls had been dispatched into the store, Mandy in charge and taking great delight in ordering the younger girls around, Faraday turned to glare at his sister.  
  
“What the hell, Beth.”  
  
“It’s not like that – ” Beth started, soothing. Dave, lingering behind her shoulder with his arms crossed over his chest, grumbled, “It’s sort of like that.”  
  
Beth reached back without looking and slapped him on the arm.  
  
“You’re not helping,” she hissed. She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, before looking up at Faraday and saying hesitantly, “Look, Josh. We talked about it this morning, and we just don’t think – ”

“You talked about it?” Faraday laughed incredulously. “Tell me, Beth. What, _exactly_ , did you talk about?”

“Your accident,” Beth snapped, vicious and sharp. Faraday flinched and she added, a little gentler, more hesitant, “Your – your job.”  
  
“If you can even call it that,” Dave opined exasperatedly from behind her. “Psychic, my ass.”  
  
“I’m a _medium_ , not a psychic,” Faraday grumbled darkly. "People can't see the future, that's ridiculous."  
  
“Medium, psychic, who cares?” Dave snapped. “It’s a joke, Joshua, and everyone knows it but you.”  
  
Faraday shook his head, turning incredulously to look at his sister.  
  
“Beth?”  
  
She looked at him for a long second, sorrowful and apologetic, before tilting her eyes to the floor.

Faraday scrubbed his hands through his hair, turning on his heel and pacing a few steps before starting back the other direction.

“So, what? You don’t believe me about the accident?” he cut a hand through air and shrugged. “Fine. _Whatever_. Nobody does, I’m used to it. But now my job’s not good enough?” He shook his head, palms open to the sky. “What the fuck do you want from me?”  
  
“Josh, it’s not – ” Beth shook her head, stepping forward and taking one of Faraday’s hands in hers, gripping tight. “We just don’t want to make things worse. You didn’t want to go to rehab after what happened, and we respected that decision, but – ”  
  
“I didn’t go to rehab because I’m not an alcoholic!” Faraday snarled, low. It wasn’t, strictly speaking, true – he definitely drank more than his fair share and could probably stand to pace himself a bit on the day to day, but he wasn’t an alcoholic the way that Beth thought he was. The way most of his family did.  
  
“Right,” Dave drawled disbelievingly. “What was it again? Your motorcycle was haunted?”  
  
“ _Possessed!_ ” Faraday barked immediately. There was a stung moment of silence and then Beth’s face crumpled. Faraday felt it like a blow to the chest. He swallowed, thick, and repeated, voice hoarse, “It was possessed.”  
  
“My mistake,” Dave said snidely. Beth, staring at the floor while tears pooled in the corners of her eyes, turned to glare at her husband.  
  
“Just give us a goddamn minute, David,” she hissed. Dave stalked tetchily off into the general store, muttering exasperatedly under his breath.

Faraday stared down to where Beth was holding his hand, her grip so tight that her knuckles were turning white.

“I know you believe in - in hauntings, and spirits, Josh,” she said slowly, voice thick, “but it’s killing you.” She paused, swallowing, and licked her lips, relaxing her hand enough to squeeze his fingers. “There’s a – a job opening at my firm,” she offered hopefully, hesitantly. “It’s just a receptionist position but I thought maybe, maybe you could take it. Come and stay with us for awhile, move out of that horrible shithole in Fruitridge.” She paused again, smiling up at him, teary-eyed with her brow furrowed, cheeks wet. “Spend some time getting your head right.”  
  
Every word was like a knife in Faraday’s ribs. Beth squeezed his hand again.

“I was gonna wait ‘til after to talk to you about it, but. We didn’t think it’d be a good idea to do the ghost stuff while we were here.” She shrugged and admitted sheepishly, “Dave is kind of an asshole, but his heart in the right place.”

Faraday tried to tug his hand away, but Beth gripped tighter.  
  
“No,” she said miserably, shaking her head. “Josh, _no_.”  
  
“Just – ” Faraday started. He felt like there was something lodged in his throat, his eyes prickling, and his face hot. He tugged again, a little harder, and this time Beth let him go. “Just take the girls on the goddamn ghost tour. I can occupy myself until you’re done.”  
  
He turned and stormed off down the porch, ignoring his sister as she shouted his name behind him.  
  
It wasn’t a surprise, exactly, to know that Beth thought he was just as crazy as the rest of his family did. Well, with the exception of Holly, but then Holly had always given Faraday a run for his money as black sheep and family embarrassment. He hadn’t heard from their other sister or either of their brothers since they’d tried to volunteer him for an intensive AA program just after he’d wrecked his bike. He had not, he could admit from almost a year down the road, reacted as politely to their gesture as he probably could have.

As the eldest and the youngest of their little clan, respectively, he and Beth had always had a different rapport than the others – she indulged him more than she did any of their other siblings and he respected her opinion more than anyone he knew. It was painful in ways he hadn’t expected to have her come out and say that she thought he was just as much a liar as everyone else.  
  
He cut down a side alley next to one of the buildings, a milliner or an undertaker or some other long-obsolete business, scrubbing a hand over his face.  
  
“Shit,” he muttered, and kicked out at the dirt, sending a long plume of gravel skittering down the empty alley. “Shit, shit, shit!”

He staggered backward to the nearest wall, leaning against it and digging his Marlboros out of his pocket.

The lighter he kept jammed down inside the pack was so old that whatever stupid novelty illustration had originally been screen-printed on it was mostly worn away, only the faint impression of a palm tree still visible. He shook a cigarette out and put it in his mouth, striking the lighter four or five times and only able to conjure up a weak hiss and a pathetic spark.

“Of _fucking_ course,” he grumbled darkly to himself with a deep, frustrated sigh. He glanced up to peer about the alley. There was nobody back the way he’d came, but one of the costumed employees was loitering way down at the other end, leaning casually against a little stretch of wooden fence with a boot propped up against it, enjoying a half-smoked cigar of all things.

Faraday tucked the lighter back into the soft-pack and shoved the whole thing into an interior pocket, jamming his fists into his jacket as he stalked down along the narrow aisle.  
  
“Hey pal,” he said when he’d sidled up close enough to be heard, “you got a light?”  
  
The man startled, blinking and glancing suspiciously over his shoulder before turning to frown at Faraday.  
  
“You talking to me, guero?” he asked hesitantly. His voice was deep and thickly accented, costume adorned with shining silver accents that reminded Faraday of a bullfighter.  
  
“You see anyone else down here?” Faraday asked with a pointed look around.

The man shook his head slowly and Faraday rolled his eyes, not in the mood for whatever games this weirdo was playing because he didn’t want to break character. Even if - Faraday admitted grudgingly, giving the guy a second look - he might be cute enough to be worth the charade.

"Look, do you have a light, or not?”  
  
“Sorry,” the guy said slowly, shaking his head, gaze darting around like he thought someone was playing a practical joke on him. “No.”  
  
“Great,” Faraday grumbled, fishing his lighter back out. Maybe the universe would smile on him and he’d be able to coax one last, tiny flame out of it. More likely, with the way his day was going, the entire thing would catch alight and Faraday would spontaneously combust right here in cowboy country.  
  
He flicked it a few more times, mood growing darker and darker until finally, blessedly, a tiny tongue of flame sputtered into existence just long enough for him to ignite the cherry.  
  
“Thank Christ,” he sighed gratefully around that first, precious mouthful.

“Bad day?”  
  
He peered over at the mystery employee. The guy was tall, maybe taller even than Faraday himself, and really quite a looker considering that he spent his adult life dressing up like a cowboy. It suited him, somehow, in a way that Faraday couldn’t precisely put a finger on – the black leather vest and the wild scruff, dark eyes glittering in the shadow of his hat brim, silver pistols gleaming at his hips.  
  
“You could say that,” Faraday replied, leaning back against the fence alongside him. “How about you? How’s the cowpolk life?”  
  
The guy laughed.  
  
“I’m not a cowpolk,” he said with a grin. He was even more attractive when he smiled. Faraday took a thoughtful drag off his cigarette and looked the guy up and down – broad shoulders, long legs, looked like he could probably hold his own in a fight.  
  
“What are you, then? Rancher? Farmer?” He snapped his fingers and pointed. “I got it! Trick rider.”  
  
“Outlaw,” the guy supplied, smirking wolfishly. Faraday snorted, arching a dubious eyebrow.  
  
“Isn’t the whole Mexican outlaw thing kind of played out?”

The outlaw shrugged a shoulder.  
  
“It’s what I am either way.”

“Some life philosophy,” Faraday grinned. “You get that out of a greeting card?”  
  
The outlaw snorted and ducked his head. Normally, Faraday was in possession of at least enough self-restraint to refrain from hitting on total strangers while on family outings, but he was desperate to get his mind off of the way his sister’s face had folded in on itself when he claimed that his motorcycle had been possessed; how desperately hopeful she had looked when she asked him to come fit himself into her life for awhile, until he was reshaped into something easier to palate.  
  
“Joshua Faraday,” he offered, tapping his ash out onto the ground. The outlaw looked up at him.  
  
“Vasquez.”  
  
Faraday arched an expectant eyebrow.

“Just Vasquez?”  
  
“Sí,” Vasquez replied, a little, teasing curl at the edge of his smirk.

Faraday grinned back at him. This, he could work with.  
  
“So, tell me, _Vasquez_ ,” he took a drag off his cigarette, gesturing with it tucked between his fingers, “why an outlaw?”  
  
Vasquez shrugged.  
  
“It seemed like the best option at the time.”  
  
“Lot of money in it, I expect,” Faraday offered, and Vasquez nodded.  
  
“Sometimes,” he agreed. “If you know where to look.”  
  
“Where’s the _best_ place? Biggest haul?” Faraday asked, leaning in a little, eyes narrowed and grin sharp. Vasquez considered him for a long moment, head tilted, gaze dark and intent over his sly smirk.

There was a little scuffling noise down at the other end of the alley and Faraday glanced over.  
  
Paige was standing there, frowning curiously at him.  
  
“Uncle Josh,” she asked, tromping down the dusty alley in her little pink boots, “who are you talking to?”  
  
“Well, I was just – ” Faraday started, and turned back to where Vasquez was posted up on the fence beside him.  
  
There was nobody there.

Just empty air and the faint, lingering smell of cigar smoke.  
  
_Goddamn ghosts_ , Faraday thought darkly.

This was precisely the reason he hated visiting historical landmarks – unless their unfinished business was due to some kind of visible, brutal violence, it was damn near impossible to discern an actual spirit from a person roaming around in period dress.  
  
“Nobody, honey,” he sighed, tossing his cigarette into the dirt and stamping it out with the heel of his motorcycle boot. “What do you need?”  
  
“I wanna go see the chickens instead of doing the ghost walk and mommy said I could go if you go with me,” Paige supplied brightly.  
  
“Chickens?” Faraday asked. Paige nodded, braids bouncing. He shook his head mournfully. “Gosh, I’m real sorry, Paige, but – ” he started, doing his best to keep his frown in place as her face fell. He rushed forward and scooped her up, tossing her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry as she laughed and squealed. “I _love_ chickens! Let’s go, bok-bok-bok!”  
  
As he hauled her back down the alley, giggling and thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, Faraday could swear he heard the distant whisper of low laughter.  
  
_Yuck it up, fucker,_ he thought meanly, pausing at the mouth of the alley to turn and glare back behind him. _At least I’m still alive_.  
  
“Uncle Josh?” Paige asked gently, as he stared down the narrow walk.  
  
“Yeah, darlin’?”  
  
“Mandy said daddy thinks you’re crazy. Are you crazy?”  
  
Faraday shook his head, turning to stalk off toward the big chicken coop at the far end of the little town, Paige apparently perfectly content to be hauled around like so many tubers, tapping out a rhythm on Faraday’s back with her hands.  
  
“You know what, sweetheart?” he sighed. “If I ever figure that one out, I’ll let you know.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

The chickens were loud and kind of smelly, but Paige decided elatedly upon roughly three seconds of exposure that all she wanted in life was to be a chicken farmer, so the pervasive odor and incessant squawking were something of an even wash in Faraday's book.

"You think mommy would let me put chickens in the yard?" she asked, staring, awed, at a fluffy pile of freshly-hatched chicks, huddled drowsily together under a massive heat lamp. Faraday reached over to paw affectionately at her hat.

"Big as your house is, you could probably sneak 'em back there without anybody noticing," he said absently, and immediately regretted it when Paige's eyes - wide and reverential - narrowed to thoughtful slits. "You should probably ask, though," he continued awkwardly. "Because it's - uh - the - the - "

"The right thing to do?" Paige asked, arching an eyebrow, looking up at him with a startlingly discomfiting amount of sympathy for a nine-year-old.

"Yeah," Faraday agreed, relieved. "That."

Paige screwed up her face for a second, thoughtful and amused.

"You're funny, Uncle Josh," she announced after a long moment, hopping off the little wooden step-stool she'd clambered up onto for a better view of the chicks and taking a few steps down the long row of incubators. "Come on, let's go see if they have roosters!"

Faraday was pretty sure he knew he answer to that question, if the unholy squalling emanating from the other end of the building was any indication.

The back of his neck prickled, cold, and Faraday straightened up with a frown, glancing around the truly massive wooden warehouse. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary until the very last second, a little flash of silver in the corner of his eye, the disappearing edge of a familiar smirk.

"Fuck," he muttered with feeling, pinching at the bridge of his nose and hunching his shoulders as he jogged after Paige. If some specter decided to start shit here, he was never going to live it down.

 _Maybe_ , a traitorous voice whispered in the back of his mind, _if Beth could just_ see _then she would -_

Faraday shook his head to rattle the thought loose. That way lie madness, he knew from years and years of miserable experience.

By the time the rest of Paige's nuclear family caught back up with them, Faraday was at one of the picnic tables outside the so-called restaurant - which was more like a school cafeteria than anything else - splitting a truly outrageous sugar cookie with his niece and absently browsing through the Rose Creek website on his phone.

While the girls chattered excitably over each other, comparing stories of chickens and grisly Victorian murders, Beth settled hesitantly at Faraday's side.

"What're you looking for?" she asked gingerly, soft and hopeful. Faraday sighed but didn't look at her.

"Just curious about the history of this place," he said benignly.

"Uncle Jay is looking for outlaws!" Paige provided helpfully, popping up out of the conversation with her sisters just long enough to offer this pronouncement before ducking her head back down again, proudly displaying the collection of chicken-breed postcards that Faraday had caved and bought for her.

"Outlaws, huh?" Beth asked gently. Faraday was probably imagining the suspicious tone to the question but he bristled anyway, thumbing his screen off and slipping his phone into his pocket.

"Bound to be someone up to trouble back in those days," he said casually.

"You always did have a nose for trouble," Beth agreed, soft and teasing.

Faraday shrugged without responding and she deflated a little beside him. Across the table, Nina looked longingly at the remaining crumbs of the sugar cookie.

"Mom, I'm hungry!" she wailed plaintively.

"You ready to hit the road?" Beth asked, and all three girls nodded. She turned to Faraday, chewing thoughtfully at her lower lip. "We're going to Country Kitchen. It's just down the road from here, you're welcome to join us if - "

"No," Faraday shook his head, and ignored the sting in his chest when Beth flinched. "No, that's okay. I need to get back anyway." He hesitated for a second before saying, a little meanly, "Work, you know."

Dave scoffed from across the table and Faraday manfully resisted the urge to put his fist through the other man's nose.

"Sure," Beth agreed thinly. "Work."

They wound their way back through Rose Creek in blessedly ghost-free if incredibly frosty silence. The girls, at least, seemed blissfully unaware, talking loudly about their favorite parts of the day and projecting their hopes about what was in store for them at lunch.

Faraday bought an extra couple of trinkets for all three of them in the gift shop - a sheriff's badge and wooden pop-gun for Nina; a book on backyard farming for Paige, which had the added benefit of making Beth's face go dark; a delicate necklace with a horseshoe charm for Mandy.

"Hey look!" Paige said delightedly, rocketing over to where Faraday was waiting for an unenthusiastic high school student to ring up his purchases. She had an envelope in her fist, waving it back and forth so wildly that Faraday couldn't quite make out what it was supposed to be. "Outlaws!"

Faraday frowned curiously and reached down to still her hand, eyebrows jumping when he saw the title printed in a fancy, Western script on the front of the envelope.

'Outlaws of Old Rose Creek,' it read. 'A series of ten posters of the Old West's Most Wanted who lived here in our humble home.'

It was a bit of a long shot, but -

"Good find, kid," Faraday said approvingly. "Throw it up there."

Paige positively beamed.

**Author's Note:**

> Whew!
> 
> I know that was a little OC-heavy, but I promise you there is 100% more Vasquez in the next chapter, and other Mag7 characters besides. ;)
> 
> I'm also super stoked to announce an update schedule for you guys! This fic will ~~update on Mondays~~ , from now until it is finished, and Thread, String, Rope will update on Saturdays going forward. You may get extra updates in between depending on what kind of free time I have, but those days will be static and certain at least.
> 
> I really hope you guys enjoyed this first chapter - I had high hopes of finishing the whole wild story before Halloween but it's gonna be a LONG one, so. /shrug
> 
> The title comes from Death Cab for Cutie's [The Ghosts of Beverly Drive](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=srvcc8izHSU), which, at the risk of tilting my hand, is also the main mood-setting track for this fic, in case you're interested. 
> 
> As always, thank you for reading, my darling dears! <3
> 
>  **P.S.:** Sorry for the delay in response to your lovely, unbearably flattering comments! I just really, REALLY wanted to get this finished in time to post on Halloween! Also: I'm on [Tumblr](http://thrillingest.tumblr.com) and am @thrillingest on Twitter if either of those are your jam. I'm not big by way of producing content but I do like to chat! <3
> 
>  
> 
> **UPDATE: Hey y'all! I'm giving the update schedule a little bit of breathing room and changing it so that this fic will be updated every _other_ Monday rather than every Monday. Its chapters are a little bit longer and I'm writing it more whole-cloth than By a String, so I need a little more time for quality control than I do with the other. I'm sorry for any inconvenience or disappointment but hey! It's still getting written, so please don't fret about that!**
> 
>  
> 
> **Thanks, darlings! <3**


End file.
